We all can't be professional writers; we all can't have our own newspaper columns. This right here is my space. I get to be my own writer and editor and everyone else will just have to settle to be my critic.

Friday, November 20, 2015

Honking

You are at a traffic light, it's red, you wait for it to turn green. It turns green, and half a second later the car behind you is honking. Sound familiar?

It's funny but, I've seen the same cars I see in Ghana in three different countries, and I can't help but wonder if these cars were made without horns. Why? I never hear anyone honking!
Granted, some motorists in Ghana are just something (for lack of a nice word to describe them, I stick with something), and they just need to be honked at, but really, do we have to honk at everything?

This morning, I'm driving to work. I'm at a traffic light that isn't working because of dumsor, and there isn't a police officer directing. Suffice to say everyone's trying to be smart. Gradually, all the cars ahead of me manage to make the turn safe for the car directly in front of me. This car just wouldn't make an attempt to move. It's getting annoying, I'm getting impatient. Do I honk? No. Obviously this person ahead of me loves their car more than their time, or they just aren't going anywhere that important. So, rather than waste my time and pollute the environment with the sound of my honking, I overtake this car, branch onto the main road, and leave this motorist to wait for all the cars to just stop on their own (like that would ever happen) before moving. Problem solved, without honking.

Fast forward a few minutes later, I am at a roundabout. All the cars ahead of me try to give way to traffic on their left and manage to go their way (without me honking at them). Now, I am the first car. There are so many cars heading towards me from my left. I wait for an opening. Suddenly, the car behind me honks like there's a tornado heading towards them. I just don't get it. Why do motorists in Ghana like love honking so much? Don't motorists in Ghana get that all that honking is annoying, and chances are they are just going to end up confusing the motorist they are honking at, causing that motorist to make a dumb move, and end up in a rather avoidable accident?

I should add that a lot of the honking is done by taxi drivers and bus (trotro) drivers.

8 comments:

Lol! This felt like I was reading about Nigeria. Cos it's pretty much the same if not worse. Somewhere in my mind I think it's worse, cos my countrymen n women can honk for Africa! As though every problem in the road is solved by honking.

The one that can be very annoying is continuously honking when there is gridlock traffic....where is the hurry?

blessings....am not a driver but i have witnessed the honking here in Toronto Canada and it usually involves impatience of one driver to the other as if to say "move your ass"another reason is soccer and the team won they all the cars that support that team are parading and honking down the place loud as you please.

This post really cracked me up. I live in Lagos, I am certain that one's car would be wrecked if they didn't hoooonk the common sense back into the heads of some other drivers especially the reckless commercial bus drivers

On a lighter note, there's something almost therapeutic about pressing my horn while driving, I suppose the sound reminds me that I am actually driving.

We had a "No Honking Day" last year, it was almost painful driving that day. Lol